Editorial: Safeguard your own privacy because no one else will

Instagram is demonstrated on an iPhone last year. Instagram, the popular photo-sharing service that Facebook bought this year, is the target of a storm of outrage on Twitter and other sites after the company announced last month a change in its user agreement that hinted that it might use shared photos in ads.Associated Press file / Domb Sadof

Privacy and liberty are inextricably linked. To lose one is to lose the other.

Take the most obvious and extreme example: someone convicted of a crime and sent to prison. There, of course, he loses not only his liberty, but also any expectation of privacy.

When we lose our privacy, bit by little-noticed bit, we lose too our own freedom, our control over our own lives.This thought was pushed to the fore recently by the widespread outrage over a popular online photo-sharing service’s change in the terms of conditions that would appear to grant the operation the right to use people’s photos without permission or compensation. In other words, the service, Instagram, could use a picture of your kids playing on the beach — looking cuter than the day is long – to advertise a product you don’t happen to like. You’d get no money, and could do nothing about it.

Why?

Because of those terms of use that almost no one reads. The one that says, “by checking this box, you agree to our terms and conditions.”

Yeah, sure, whatever. Check. Next.

But suppose that the text read as follows:

“By checking this box, you agree that your private life – and those of your friends and family members – isn’t important to you, and that your sense of liberty as an American is pretty much a thing of the past.”

Who would just check it and move on? Would you? Read the fine print. If you don’t protect your privacy, your liberty, no one is going to do it for you.